I have seen both sides of this. In a previous life I was a turboprop captain and worked for a small outfit where no women were employed. One of the most embarrassing (and a conversation I now feel ashamed even having had) was with a very competent lady pilot who I knew wanted to work there. I had to tell her that we did not take female pilots, which everyone knew to be true. It was just a fact of the guy who ran the airline and is completely indefensible, but that is how it was. I now work for easyJet and we are actively seeking applications from lady pilots. The harsh reality is that the sheer numbers of women pilots easyJet want do not really exist for a whole variety of cultural reasons, that we could debate endlessly. The same argument could be made for black male pilots from West Indian backgrounds. They simply do not exist in any numbers to employ in the first place - again for a whole variety of cultural reasons that are way outside of easyJet's control. The arguments are very difficult - should we employ men and women on an equal basis regarding ability or should we weight the dice in favour of women to correct a clear imbalance? There is no easy answer to this and easyJet will face this very problem. If we take women who are manifestly not as good as their male peers, that is there for the world to see and we are opening the door to big trouble. Do we, however, continue the practice of keeping this a male-dominated profession? I think not. I should also point out that our female captains are often incredibly talented and capable pilots who are a pleasure to observe in action. They just do not exist in the same numbers as their male colleagues, and that is a very hard problem to solve.
We at easyJet have virtually no female Training Captains (we do have a tiny number and are trying to increase it). Why is this? It is certainly not a deliberate policy, but more due to a host of practical problems faced by ladies at key stages in their lives. It is really to do with the fact that at the critical stages of selection for these types of jobs, ladies are typically married and having children. They are often part-time and pre-occupied with being mothers. To get through the Training Captain courses requires massive emotional effort and at critical times many women are simply not able to provide the continued effort required to get through. Often their husbands/partners are in big careers themselves and cannot provide the background support many wives do to husbands going through these courses themselves with young children. I used to have no sympathy for this, but have actually completely transformed my view. Forget company success and 'efficiency' for a moment. We as a society need to have professional women who form part of the breeding population, given that men cannot do so. To that end, we must remove invisible glass ceilings that effectively prevent advancement by skilled women. At easyJet I believe we are genuinely trying to do this, but the practicalities are enormous in doing so. I am not a manager, but merely a casual observer seeing how difficult it is practically-speaking for even the most talented married women with children to succeed at being a Training Captain. I am now of the view that we have to provide a level of support to women that most men do not require, simply because it is the women who have the lion's share of the work in bringing up children. We need to radically change our practices of the past and make it work for these talented ladies to advance up the system. Just my own opinion - and very different from how I used to feel. Others may disagree.